Thursday, June 23, 2011

Philmont-an experience of a lifetime

I came home exhausted last night but with a feeling of great pride and accomplishment. While the 11 days and 10 nights in the high and cold Rocky Mountains along with the most challenging hiking I have ever done were very hard on and had very little opportunities to fishing, I had some of the greatest experiances of my life. The views were absolutaly amazing with some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

Hike to the Tooth

This ended up being one of the most challenging things we did throught out our trek. We had to hike 11 miles to a dry camp and this included a side hike to the Tooth of Time, one of the most famous landmarks in Philmont. Of course water was our biggest concern throughout this hike. We decided 2lts of water per person would be enought to make it to the top. On the way up we passes a venture crew who had just came down from the top warning us to save our water and that they were out. We wished them luck and continued our hike. We thought we there several times until we started going downhill and switchback after switchback. When they finally stopped we were several hundred feet below the tooth and looking up at the many boulders we had to climb to reach the top. Even by that time I was exhausted and we decided to eat lunch below the summit so we would have the energy to make it up there. When we made it to the top it became worth it

.
Last water source before the tooth, I neary went insane seeing all these trout and not being able to fish for them.

Hike to the Top

The top

Wildfire we could see across the Colorado New Mexico Border

Mini-bear and huge squirrel on top of the tooth

Going back down

When we got to the bottom there was a major problem. We were pretty much out of water and were going back to our packs that we left some of our water with. We got to our packs to find the pack tarp thrown off, bear bags tied to different trees and half of our water stolen!!!! That damn venture crew was telling to to save water because they were going to steal ours! To make matters worse there was another crew there that had several kids who were severely dehydrated and we didn't even have enought water to help them. Luckily we had cell coverage were we were and notified some rangers what had happened and the gave us enough water to make it to their camp. When we got there they gave us ice water which was amazing, but the dehydrated crew pretty much colapsed as we came into the camp. Several of them were so badly dehydrated they had to have an I.V. put into them. What stunned me the most about this is that BOY SCOUTS stole one of the most important thing that you need to survive and completely screwed us!

BEAR!!!!!!

Of course we were hiking in Bear Canyon when we went over a ridge and this guy was standing on the trail 15ft in front of us. One of my friends started yelling saying "You have no friends!!!!!" and "Your mom left you as a cub because your fat and ugly". I was laughing so hard this was the only picture I could of it. Not very many crews get to see bears anymore theses days and I feel ver lucky to see one

Baldy-the highlight of the trip

One of the reasons we chose the trek we were one was because one of the scouts in our group who's dad who went here 29 years ago was not able to climb Mt. Baldy because everyone else in his crew was too tired. We had all been anticipating this climb for months (for me a week) and knew it would be the best part of the trip and it did not dissapoint us.

Climb to the top

Snow!!!!!

Just above the treeline.

The Summit

As soon as we got to the top we were blasted by an 80+ mph wind. It was so strong that you could jump up and get blown back 2 feet. The view from on top was stunning to say the least; we could see pretty much the entire property from Baldy .

Mini-bear on top of Baldy

Hiding behing the wind barricades

Eagle Nest Lake

We came off the mountain with an awesome experience under our belts and this is one thing we will surely remember for the rest of our lives.

Black Powder Shooting

There were so many deer everywhere we went. I think I saw at least a few every day.

Only Whitetails we saw the entire trip.

Fishing in Philmont

Like I said earlier I hardly got to fish at all the entire trip. Only for about 20 mins on the 1st day and maybe 45 on the 5th day so I only managed two fish, one on each of those days. The fishing I have to say was pretty good and I missed several more fish and crossed several creek that I could see some very nice trout in, but didn't get a chance to fish for them.

Brown/rainbow hybrid

I thought I was going to be able to fish here but it ended up being a disgusting 2ft deep pond with only diseases and bugs living in it.

Cimarroncito Reservior was one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever fished. There are a ton of fish in it too, but I kept missing them

For the scenery

If you have anymore question or want to see more pictures that I have feel free to comment